Atari Blocking TxK On All Platforms, Says Creator Jeff Minter

Update: An Atari spokesperson provided the following statement to IGN:

"Atari values and protects its intellectual property and expects others to respect its copyrights and trademarks. When Llamasoft launched TxK in early 2014, Atari was surprised and dismayed by the very close similarities between TxK and the Tempest franchise. Atari was not alone in noticing the incredible likeness between the titles. Several major gaming outlets also remarked at the similarity of features and overall appearance of TxK to Tempest; one stated of TxK, 'This is essentially Tempest.' There is no lawsuit. Atari has been in continuous contact with the developer since the game launched in hopes that the matter would be resolved."

The quote from Atari's statement comparing TxK to Tempest is from IGN's own review of TxK from last year.

Original story follows...

TxK, the colorful PS Vita tube shooter from Llamasoft, won't be coming to additional platforms according to creator Jeff Minter, who says Atari is blocking the game on legal grounds.

A series of tweets from Minter, beginning yesterday, marks this as an ongoing, year-long battle that is just now going public. A

@AG_Systems Forces hostile to Llamasoft ensure that there will likely never be anything more along those lines from me on any platform

One of Minter's earliest tweets about the situation refers to "forces hostile to Llamasoft" that have been "bullying" his company over the similarity between his game TxK and Atari's Tempest games.

"So yeah all the stuff we had ready or near ready will now never see the light of day. No TxK PC, PS4, Oculus, GearVR, Android. Thank 'Atari'," tweeted Minter.

So yeah all the stuff we had ready or near ready will now never see the light of day.No TxK PC, PS4, Oculus, GearVR, Android. Thank "Atari". — Jeff Minter (@llamasoft_ox) March 18, 2015

Minter used to work at Atari, where in 1994 he created Tempest 2000, an Atari Jaguar remake of Dave Theurer's classic Atari arcade game Tempest from 1984. TxK, which Minter released in 2014 on the PS Vita, is not an official remake or sequel of Tempest 2000.

In a PlayStation blog post from 2013, Minter referred to it as a "new game in a similar vein" that "will draw on the spirit of the classic T2K."

In a blog post, re-posted on Pastebin due to the large amounts of traffic, Minter elaborates on some of the pressure he says Atari is putting on him, including removing TxK from the PlayStation store and signing away his rights to ever make a "Tempest style game" again.

We've reached out to Atari for comment and will update with any new information.

Chloi Rad is a Staff Writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @_chloi.